Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), in collaboration with Japan’s SBI Remit, is using Ripple’s Blockchain enterprise solution to power real-time remittance payments between Japan and Thailand. A first for the corridor, Ripple’s cross-border payments network solution is helping remittances from Japan reach SCB retail customers easily and faster than ever before.

Approximately 40,000 Thai nationals currently live in Japan and total remittance flows from Japan to Thailand are roughly USD250 million a year.

The rollout of this new service begins today, and supports individual funds transfers from JPY in Japan to THB in SCB savings accounts in Thailand. Once sent, the funds are credited to an SCB recipient’s account within two to five seconds, a significant uplift compared with the up to two business days it currently can take for a payment to be made between the two countries. SCB plans to roll out the service in other key markets across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Dr. Arak Sutivong, chief strategy officer at SCB, said:

“SCB invests in innovative technology, like Ripple, to provide our retail customers with the financial products and services they increasingly need in this digital age. Customers increasingly expect payments to work in real time, whether domestic or international.

“We are proud to be the first bank to use Ripple’s leading Blockchain network solution to power real-time payments between Japan and Thailand for our customers, whose families oftentimes depend on the availability of these funds for basic needs – time is of the essence to them. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Ripple as we expand the service into other key markets in the future.”

“It is our duty to continuously search for superior technological solutions to deliver ever improved remittance services for our customers. In this case, Ripple was impressive in concept and turned out to be more so in practice. Furthermore, we can expect to have more favorable foreign exchange opportunities as Ripple’s network expands. For this, we welcome more institutions to join and help us offer competitive remittance services over conventional methods to our valued customers.”

Marcus Treacher, global head of strategic accounts at Ripple, said:

“Ripple’s goal is to make cross-border payments move as quickly and as easily as information does today. In the case of SBI Remit and SCB, our solution helps ensure that remittances from Japan reach their destination in Thailand near instantly. SCB and SBI Remit are leading the way in Asia in serving new customer demands for real-time cross-border payments, making theirs a highly competitive offering.

“We are excited to expand our relationship with SCB further across their other key markets, and to continue the momentum with commercial traction for the Ripple network worldwide.”

Founder of industry publication Blockchain News, partner at ICO services collective CryptoAsset Design Group (helped raise over $200m+), director of education company Blockchain Partners (Oracle Partner) and ICO event organiser at leading industry event CryptoFinancing (first ICO event in Europe) - Richard Kastelein is an award-winning publisher, innovation executive and entrepreneur. He sits on the advisory boards of half a dozen Blockchain startups and has written over 1200 articles on Blockchain technology and startups at Blockchain News and has also published pioneering articles on ICOs in Harvard Business Review and Venturebeat.

He is a Canadian (Dutch/Irish/English/Métis) whose writing career has ranged from the Canadian Native Press (Arctic) to the Caribbean & Europe. He's written occasionally for Harvard Business Review, Wired, Venturebeat, The Guardian and Virgin.com and his work and ideas have been translated into Dutch, Greek, Polish, German and French.

A journalist by trade, an entrepreneur and adventurer at heart, Kastelein's professional career has ranged from political publishing to TV technology, boatbuilding to judging startups, skippering yachts to marketing and more as he's travelled for nearly 30 years as a Canadian expatriate living around the world.

In his 20s, he sailed around the world on small yachts and wrote a series of travel articles called, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Seas' travelling by hitching rides on yachts (1989) in major travel and yachting publications. He currently lives in Groningen, Netherlands where he's raising three teenage daughters with his wife and sailing partner, Wieke Beenen.

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